EPD Officer Found to Have Failed to Investigate Sexual Abuse Allegation

A Eureka police officer was found to have failed to timely investigate allegations of the sexual abuse of a minor last year, neglecting to take any action on a report from school staff for more than a month.

The officer, who resigned amid the internal affairs investigation, was found to have neglected his duties, engaged in conduct unbecoming, failed to activate his portable recorder during the investigation and violated the department’s body-worn camera policy, according to a quarterly report by OIR Group, the city’s independent police auditor, detailing four closed internal affairs investigations completed in October through December of last year. The report was presented to the city’s Community Oversight on Police Practices Board on Jan. 24 and included other findings of other officers’ “inappropriate use of social media,” failing to “properly respond” to a call for service at a medical clinic and using “unprofessional language.”

Prepared by OIR Group as a part of its 2022 contract with the city to provide third-party police oversight, the quarterly report does not name officers or include specific disciplinary actions taken by the department, both of which would violate state law protecting police personnel records. (New laws make such information public in cases in which officers used excessive force, committed sexual assault on duty, were dishonest or found to have acted with bias, but none of the cases detailed in this quarterly report meet those parameters, as outlined in Senate Bill 2.)

In the case of the officer failing to timely investigate the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, the complaint was internally-generated, meaning someone within the department reported the alleged misconduct.

“In this case, an EPD employee learned of the potential sexual abuse from school personnel,” the report states. “The employee then failed to investigate the matter, inform his supervisor or command staff of the incident, or take any other action on the case for over a month.”

More than a month after the initial report, the officer sought advice from a supervisor, who directed him to take immediate action, according to the report. The officer then met with the victim in the case but failed to record the conversation or take an official statement, saying “the topic seemed to elicit an emotional response from the victim.”

“In the following weeks, the victim attempted to connect with the officer, who did not respond in a timely fashion,” the report states. “This left the victim feeling as if the officer did not want to hear her story or investigate possible criminal activity.”

Eventually, according to the report, another EPD officer took over the case, determined the assault had taken place in a different jurisdiction and forwarded the case to another agency.

OIR Group deemed EPD’s internal investigation to be thorough with one exception: that being the interview with the officer, in which the auditor found the investigator failed to ask “sufficiently probing questions.” OIR Group reported that EPD agreed with its recommendations for the additional training of new IA investigators. Ultimately, the lack of “rigor’ in the officer’s interview did not affect the outcome of the investigation, the auditor found, noting that all allegations against the officer were sustained. But no discipline was imposed due to the officer’s resignation.

Oversight Board Member James Ladika asked about this.

“What effect does that have on the officer’s status?” he asked. “Does that make them not re-hirable? Does that follow them or if they resign in the course of an investigation is it like nothing ever happened?”

EPD Chief Brian Stephens, who took over from retiring Chief Todd Jarvis late last month, said he had to be “careful” about what he shared.

“The officer’s resignation was not due to the investigation process itself,” Stephens said. “It had to do with other issues, or personal issues, the officer was dealing with, so his resignation was not in lieu of any type of discipline being issued or anything like that.”

If the officer were to seek employment with another agency and EPD was contacted as a part of a background investigation, Stephens said it would give the agency full access to the investigation and its findings.

Another case presented to the board was also initiated within the department, and came after an officer posted body-worn camera footage of a fleeing suspect being hit with the opening door of an EPD patrol car to social media, indicating in “taglines” that he’d intentionally hit the suspect with the car door.

“EPD concluded that the employee’s taglines were misleading and that this was not a use of force incident,” the report states, adding that it was determined the employee had not “intentionally” hit the fleeing suspect with the car door.

Nonetheless, the investigation found the officer had violated policy by taking a record of body-worn camera footage and disclosing it publicly, “belittling” the suspect and acting in way that “discredited the department.” The officer was disciplined, though the report does not specify how.

The report also notes that two other officers saw the social media post and failed to report it department leadership, also a violation of policy. Those employees received a “discrepancies noted” memo from the department and were “retrained” on departmental policy requiring officers to report misconduct.

Another case involved an allegation that an officer used unprofessional language and failed to use de-escalation techniques when responding to a civil disturbance call involving a juvenile and his parent. Two community members initially brought the complaint forward but subsequently withdrew it, the report states, but EPD conducted an internal investigation anyway. The incident involved an officer called to a residential neighborhood where a mother was trying to coax a yelling juvenile out of the backseat of a family member’s car, according to the report.

“After unsuccessfully attempting to verbally encourage the juvenile to exit, the officer instructed the mother to pull the juvenile out, which she did,” the report states. “This escalated the situation, as the juvenile ran into the roadway and re-entered the vehicle from the opposite side. After another round of this, the officer instructed the family member to drive away and the mother to physically restrain the juvenile. The juvenile was combative and made various allegations of abuse as the mother attempted to restrain him with the officer’s continued encouragement. When the juvenile began to strike the mother, the officer intervened and placed the juvenile’s arm in a control hold. The juvenile cursed at the officer and the officer responded by yelling, among other comments, that the juvenile was ‘a little baby’ …”

Eventually, an officer arrived who knew the juvenile, talked to him “calmly and patiently,” and resolved the situation.

EPD’s investigation determined the initial responding officer’s “demeanor and language” were unprofessional but the response was otherwise within policy, issuing “low-level” discipline for being discourteous. OIR Group opined that the investigation should have also alleged a failure to de-escalate, saying the officer’s actions “significantly heightened tensions and escalated the situation,” recommending the department conduct additional training on de-escalation tactics, both for the officer involved and departmentwide.

OIR Group Project Manager and Engagement Leader Teresa Magula noted during her presentation to the board that three of the four complaints reviewed were “department-initiated.”

“We’re really pleased the department is identifying and formally addressing issues they identify,” she said. “This is something that not all agencies do. In some agencies, they try to mitigate or resolve these matters in an informal way. So we were pleased to see a fairly large course correction with EPD choosing to formally frame, address and discipline these types of actions that they identify internally.”

Addressing the board as “citizen” and “retiree” during public comment, Jarvis thanked board members and OIR Group for their work.

“What you do is very important,” he said. “And for us to be a legitimate organization and profession, we need people looking over our shoulder and making sure we’re doing the right thing.”

This article appears in Building a Safety Net.